Tag Archives: most influential novels of all time

In 1998 the Library Journal asked its members: what is the most influential novel of the 20th century? And by influence, they meant impact on the larger world or on their own lives. Librarians love lists, just as much as they love books. They came up with a list of 150 titles. Here are the first 25 of the most influential novels:

1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee 2. The Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger 3. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien 4. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell 5. Beloved by Toni Morrison 6. The Color Purple by Alice Walker. 7. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell 8. Animal Farm by George Orwell 9. Lord of the Flies by William Golding 10. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller 11. The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck 12. Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White 13. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald 14. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut 15. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez 16. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry 17. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov 18. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury 19. Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier 20. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck 21. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith 22. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien 23. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey 24. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark 25. My Antonia by Willa Cather